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as a pre-task to the activity, the coursebook explicitly asks the students to look at a picture and comment in some way. 5.8.1 IS THE LAYOUT AND PRESENTATION CLEAR OR CLUTTERED? The layout is very professionally presented and not overly cluttered, and was an initial positive factor in my selection of High Impact as coursebook for my class. This ‘impressionistic overview’ (Cunningsworth 1995: 1) revealed that all 12 main units followed a standard format of six sections: Warm Up, Listening, Conversation Topic, Grammar Awareness, Pair Interaction and Read and Response. Each section consists of one page each, typically consisting of a three-stage activity process. This standard procedure lessened student unfamiliarity, and after covering a couple of units students know what to expect in terms of teacher direction and meta-language. 5.9 IS THE MATERIAL TOO CULTURALLY BIASED OR SPECIFIC...[OR]…REPRESENT MINORITY GROUPS AND/OR WOMEN IN A NEGATIVE WAY? High Impact is not written explicitly for a certain nationality or cultural group, as the topics which divide each unit are universal in nature, although it seems a certain attempt has been made by the authors to focus on Asian learners. Of the seven main characters, two are of Asian descent, and both discuss their family background (in China and Japan, respectively) for use as listening exercises. In addition, on the inside of the back cover, the authors have included an acknowledgment page in which they thank those who gave suggestions for the Impact course. Over half of the approximate 200 listed names are Asian. There does appear to be a couple of instances of negative cultural stereotyping in High Impact, revealing how coursebooks can be “biased” in subtle ways. (Littlejohn and Windeatt, cited in McDonough and Shaw 1993: 74). In one listening exercise, two non- Asian characters discuss whether to report to the police a third Asian character for committing a hit and run offence. In another listening and grammar exercise, a Chinese 12
character, while contrasting Chinese and American culture, comments on being frightened of the crime and violence in America. These instances could cause offense to some learners and teachers, as well as promoting negative representations of races and cultures. 6.0 INTERNAL EVALUATION In this stage of the analysis, as designed by McDonough and Shaw, the internal consistency and organization of the materials is examined, to discover the extent to which external claims made by the author/publisher correlate with the internal content. (McDonough and Shaw 1993: 75). 6.1 THE PRESENTATION OF THE SKILLS IN THE MATERIALS Integration of the receptive and productive skills is the trend in modern coursebook design. (Brown 1994, White 1988, Stern 1992, Cunningsworth 1995, McDonough and Shaw 1993). Each unit of the High Impact coursebook contains sections on listening, speaking and reading, while writing skills are integrated into most activities. Although equal weighting seems to be given to the four skills, developing oral communication skills is the authors’ main intention. Three of the six sections in each High Impact unit provide for student interaction. This coincides with White’s statement on general coursebooks, that “of the four skills speaking will have been given more weighting than any of the others, even though reading and writing will have been used as a means of presenting and practicing the language.” (White 1988: 68-69). This is parallel to my intentions as a teacher, that oral communication skills be weighted more, considering that students at my college receive writing and listening classes additionally. Writing activities in High Impact, though necessary in a student’s ESL education, are not in following with my oral production focus. The coursebook is easily adaptable, and I find that allotting more time to more communicative activities benefits my students to a greater degree. 13
Page 1 and 2: Evaluation of a ELT Coursebook Base
Page 3 and 4: variety of students, regardless of
Page 5 and 6: Effective evaluation relies on aski
Page 7 and 8: translators. This is the norm in th
Page 9 and 10: coursebook provides materials for a
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Page 15 and 16: learners will encounter outside the
Page 17 and 18: several suggestions for supplementi
Page 19: 22. Skierso, A. 1991. “Textbook s

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